Wishing all members and friends of the WAMRC a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!

The new public layout roster volunteering form is now on the whiteboard at the club. Please make sure you drop in to the club before mid‐January and put your name down for your preferred dates. I’ve also added a second sheet where you can specify specific dates (or ranges of dates) where you know you will not be available.

Sadly, long time WAMRC member Ian Rourke passed away just before Christmas last year after a long battle with illness. Fellow WAMRC member Norm Chapple presented a moving eulogy at his funeral, and with the permission of Ian’s family and Norm we have been allowed to reproduce it on Ian’s memorial page.

The AGM was held a couple of weeks ago and there is little to report — apart from the fact that George Sumner was unanimously voted to life membership of the club in recognition of his 27 years of uninterrupted dedication and service to the club.

Unfortunately George was unable to make it to the AGM as he wasn’t too well, so we had to wait a couple of weeks to surprise him. The photo above shows President Tony Gray (right) presenting George with a certificate. A life membership section staff is also being prepared and will be given to George once it is ready.

The Secretary (Ross) will be away with work on the 16th March, so rather than press‐ganging someone else into taking the minutes, the committee intends to delay the next regular general meeting by a week to Wednesday 23rd March (still at 8pm in the clubrooms). Formal notice of the meeting will go out this coming Wednesday (2nd March) as normal.

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We received a nice note from our travelling President a few days ago. Sounds like his trip is going well:

Hi, Yes we are still alive! Mind you we just about got fried alive going across the Nullarbor; 43°C for about 5 days in a row. Philip island was nice and cool. In Portland, Victoria at the moment with some bad weather on its way tonight; 30 to 40mm rain forecast. At this stage we will be home on the 7th March, a week before my rostered day on. Say hi to the other members for me.

Thanks Mark & Beryl

Half their luck — after 14 nights of minimums greater than 20°C, I could do with a bit of ‘bad weather’ about now…

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Finally, the N‐Scale boys finally got cracking last Wednesday night and knocked up four wooden frames in a little over an hour (see picture above) — each one measuring 2.4 x 1 metre. And that was in spite of all the *ahem* ‘helpful advice and encouragement’ *cough* from the rest of the assembled peanut gallery club members. 🙂

This phone is in the club rooms and switched on all the time — but there is no answering machine or voice mail. It will only be answered if there is someone at the club (which is normally only on Wednesdays and during the day on Saturdays and Sundays).

A new membership list is now available in the members’ area (restricted access to members only). There are quite a few updates on this latest version (including Rowan’s mobile, Cliff’s address & mobile, Paul’s address & mobile, Chris’s mobile, Gary’s mobile and Brian’s mobile) so I encourage you to update your records accordingly. I’ll also print out a bunch of hard copies to leave in the club rooms.

As we are coming up towards the AGM in July, I’ll also be sending out copies of the current membership register in conjunction with the usual call for nominations at the beginning of May.

A reminder that the first meeting of the year is on Wednesday 20th January, 8pm in the club rooms. Minutes from the November meeting are now available on the members page. Also on the members page is an updated membership register and new public layout roster (Feb — Jul 2010).